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GDCI has been proud to lead and support the design, delivery, and evaluation of safe street infrastructure across 16 cities in 10 countries as a Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) Partner. We look back at the last six years of achievements.
Announcing the next round of the Bloomberg Initiative for Cycling Infrastructure, a program helping cities around the world rethink their streets through safer, more connected cycling infrastructure.
GDCI has been proud to lead and support the design, delivery, and evaluation of safe street infrastructure across 16 cities in 10 countries as a Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) Partner. We look back at the last six years of achievements.
Both cities selected in a competitive process based on prior work prioritizing children in street redesigns in low-income neighborhoods.
In the heart of Setapak, Kuala Lumpur, where speeding vehicles and pedestrian movement intertwine daily, SK Danau Kota 2 has become the focal point of a transformative initiative aimed to make school streets safer for students to walk and cycle. This project was backed by the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), a program that has committed to address rising concerns over road traffic deaths and support road safety interventions in cities worldwide.
In 2025, GDCI brought together a selected group of 10 city teams working to scale up their efforts to create more and better Streets for Kids in Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador through multiple projects, programs, and policies. Here’s a look back and key learnings from a two-month online capacity-building program.
In October 2024, the Streets for Kids project was inaugurated in the Jordão neighborhood in Recife, Brazil, a community where children faced multiple challenges accessing safe and high-quality public spaces. Heavy rains, frequent flooding, and landslide risks often made their journey to school dangerous and unpredictable. Throughout the process, children, caregivers, school staff, and residents were engaged to co-create solutions that improve access to schools, supporte outdoor play and social connection, and set a precedent for future child-focused street transformations in Recife.
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In collaboration with the Korle Klottey Municipality and with support from the Clean Air Fund, GDCI launched the Removing Pollution from Play project in late 2023, with the aim to tackle air pollution in school environments by implementing practical solutions, raising awareness, and empowering communities to advocate for cleaner air. In March 2025, the completed intervention was inaugurated, and the new safe play space now serves over 150 students in Accra.
Since its launch in 2023, cities around the world have embraced the reverse periscope as a playful tool to reimagine streets from a child’s perspective. From community walkshops to international conferences, the tool is helping spark deeper conversations about child-friendly design. Discover how practitioners are using it to shift perspectives—and shape safer, more joyful streets for kids.
As GDCI welcomes ten cities to scale up the impact of their Streets for Kids projects as part of the 2025 Leadership Accelerator, we invite them to share their past accomplishments and bold visions.
Ten years in to GDCI, we’ve worked to transform streets around the world, inspiring leaders, informing practitioners, and inviting communities to imagine what’s possible when we design streets that put people first. But none of it would have been possible without the enthusiastic collaboration of urban leaders around the globe, who continue to pave the way for safer streets and better cities. In celebration of these leaders and their impact, GDCI is introducing the Street Shaper Awards.
Designing streets for kids goes beyond one-off street transformations and temporary events. It requires scaling up and making street improvements part of citywide programs and policies. In 2024, four cities, Canoas, Brazil; León, Mexico; Lusaka, Zambia; and Recife, Brazil, participated in the latest Streets for Kids program round, which included tailored technical assistance to implement projects and scale up the vision for kids-first projects, programs, and policies.
GDCI marks this World Children's Day with the release of two new booklets, “How to Engage Kids in Street Design” and “How to Evaluate Street Transformations Near Schools.”
